


Antagonist

by VODLIX



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: ADHD (mentioned), Angst, Antagonism, Anxiety, Arguing, Bipolar Disorder (Mentioned), Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Child Abuse, Dave & Klaus Hargreeves During Vietnam, Escapism, Freeform — Mental Health Issues, Gay Male Character, Gay Sex (implied), Gen, Genderqueer Character, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Klaus Hargreeves Whump, PTSD (mentioned), Phobias, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Self-Reflection, Vietnam War, Whump, sensory overloads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2020-04-24 08:27:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19169509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VODLIX/pseuds/VODLIX
Summary: Klaus, for all his loud personality, was never aggressively outspoken. The Hargreeves never noticed this as a particularly odd thing; after all, when Klaus was nice he was more likely to get things.





	1. Chapter 1

For all the times Reginald (who at one point had been regarded as a father to him) had personally tortured Number Four for the sake of his fear of the dead, it would come as a surprise to anyone to discover that this fear hadn’t been the one to put him through the most grief.

 

Fear of antagonistic behaviour. Fear of anger. Fear of yelling. These are more accurate fears of Four’s.

 

Klaus had grown up in noise. Never had he slept in a room void of Mrs Gillian Clark and Marcy Donovan, an old landlady who died in a fire and a pigtailed girl who died in her sleep to illness. They’d whisper and wail and scream at him when he’d try to sleep, they’d grabble and scratch and claw at him when he’d try to ignore them.

 

So it was no surprise that when his sibling’s voices raised, he’d cower, and when his sibling’s would fight, he’d hold his breath.

 

There had been times, after sparring or a disagreement, when he’d lock his room’s door and slide down to the floor. Forehead meeting his knees, trimmed fingernails digging into his shoulders, his breathing laboured. This particular experience happened more than he’d like.

 

There were times, too, when Four would sit with his siblings on their time off. Luther would start disagreeing with Diego and without knowing whether or not it would escalate, Klaus would stand up and remove himself from the situation.

 

He couldn’t stand to hear people being loud.

 

One time, Five had gotten into an argument with Reginald about the possibility of dimension travel. Five was shouting, Reginald’s voice had the commanding tone of an officer threatening dishonourable discharge.

 

Klaus, in a fit of irritability and panic, had spoken up.

 

“Shut up! We’re at dinner! Five, please stop! Stop being argumentative.” Klaus was gasping, tears running down his face, pleading, “Please, Dad. Please, stop being angry!”

 

The room went quiet, everyone turning to face Klaus. Klaus’ breath hitched, his eyebrows frozen in an angry scowl and he felt his muscles lock up and refuse to cooperate when his brain ordered him to apologise or cower or flee.

 

Reginald, without a word, walked around the table and grabbed Klaus by under his bicep. Klaus’ voice wouldn’t work but by the time he was outside and being thrown into the mausoleum he was sobbing.

 

He couldn’t explain why, or when this fear started, but he had a mortal fear of anger. He hated that when he looked in his fathers eyes, he saw the same vengeful hatred that the ghosts exhibited. He hated that when people shouted, he felt drowned in insanity— as if the voices of the dead were seeping into the mortal realm and poisoning his siblings.

 

The drugs helped. They made the line between the living and dead less significant — As if he could dance the line without consequence. As if the meaning of words were paramount to the volume of the speech that delivered them. So when the ghosts screamed “Help me!” All he registered was that they _needed_.

 

But he _needed_ too. He _needed_ more pills. He _needed_ his siblings to answer the phone. He _needed_ to be able to go home, to have a home. He _needed_ them to see him as more than a homeless junkie, to see him as a brother.

 

He didn’t fear the dead. He feared the fact that his dumb phobias had driven people to hate _him_.


	2. Chapter 2

Klaus’ childhood fear of ‘disputes’ ended up as less of a childhood thing, and more of a livelong trauma.

 

First time he’d been admitted to rehab, his psychiatrist diagnosed him with anxiety disorder and wrote down on his record that he’d experienced dissociative episodes, sensory overloads and mild PTSD. Second time he went to rehab, they told him he had depression, bipolar disorder and a knack for escapism. The third? They told his there was a chance he had ADHD and by the time they’d planned more official tests, he’d gotten the hell out of dodge.

 

One thing stayed constant throughout the wards he’d been forced to stay at: they were too quiet.

 

Now, Klaus himself will admit it's a little paradoxical of someone who fears loud noises, but he couldn’t stand the silent. It was also hypocritical of someone who risked life and limb to stay on the fringes of sanity to stop being barraged by the screams of the dead— but when had Klaus ever been a sensical person?

 

He would drown himself in street drugs to muffle the wails of wondering spirits and bathe himself in the screaming of raves and clubs. He ran from a home filled with conflict only to be met with the war of homeless thieves looking to steal his pocket-change.

 

He knew how flawed his ideals were, and he alone has suffered at the hands of his own denial. But when he saunters across the club floor and sits on someones lap, purring sweet nothingness in a man’s ear with a promise and a price, the loud sounds becomes background noice and he loves it.

 

Maybe he loves the noice because he knows it's not _them_. Because when he hears a young adult shout in joy asanother sweeps them off their feet, he innately knows its not his brother meeting his end or a sibling being tortured. Because there’s this huge difference between exclaimed joy and agony, and he lives in the in-between and he gets lost in the mix.

 

So if he ever had the courage to tell his siblings how much it pains him to hear them fight (Therapist no.1 called them anxiety-induced sensory overloads), they’d probably never believe him.

 

After all, with such a loud personality, how on earth could he have an aversion to noise?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like adding another chapter as an extension and I'm considering adding more if I feel particularly inspired, so even though its a finished work I encourage anyone reading this to bookmark it anyway!  
> (FYI, I'll beta read this soon.)


	3. All is Fair

How could he— of all people— wind up thrown into a war?

He was a pacifistic gay genderqueer twink with more (diagnosed) mental health disorders than anyone in his fucked-up family, and yet he’d landed himself smack-bang in the middle of the most pointless war he hadn’t be bothered to learn about in the academy. 

And then there was Dave— angel-on-a-popsicle-stick Dave— embodying the dichotomy of kindness and soldier, gay and 60s, parties and sobriety. Dave introduced Klaus to everything he didn’t know he was and was the first person to hold his hand in living, breathing and existing as himself. 

For the first time he was wholly him and not some personality byproduct of drug dependancy. 

Klaus learned that he loved to dance, and not just the sexy kind, but the kind where the two of them would get lost in a crowd and find one another improvising a tango with strangers to a put-together jazz band. 

Klaus learned that he loved people, and not just getting his way, but talking and laughing to jokes the soldiers wouldn’t get yet. He loved knowing the names of every soldier he bared arms for. He loved raising a glass to others lives and despite the tragedy, he knew these men and women would live on in his memory and that was such an intimate precious privilege.

Klaus learned he loved the feeling of breathing in damp jungle air after sharing breath with his lover, the two watching sunrise as they kit up and move through underbrush to assigned posts. He loved feeling his lovers pulse in his band and the air on their tongues and knowing they were going to survive this, because they had one another. 

The thing about war, is that you learn a lot about yourself and others. Nothing is truer a test of character than how a soldier reacts to situation and how the ranks treat one another. The war affected Klaus in important ways: he learnt to love, but he also learned hate. 

Klaus learned to hate the scramble for live, losing his battalion in the fray and stumbling across scenes painted in lifeblood, holding a strangers hand as they close their eyes and telling them its gonna be okay, he’ll get him back to his girl and they can forget ever being apart. 

Klaus learned to hate people, seeing people lining the tree-line with bombs and as much ill will and the US soldiers, themselves, carry— which is today, none. No one here wanted to die or kill, they were just obeying the pointless orders of pointless people with pointless money. 

Klaus learned to hate breath. He learnt this when he held his dying lover in his arms and all he could think was the absence of air, the absence of pulse, and the presence of his own. 

Dave was still, and Klaus was not. For a moment, the world seemed silent. 

Klaus wasn’t afraid of the war, he was afraid of what it cost. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's supported this and its continuation!! You have my gratitude :)
> 
> This chapter I wanted to deal with some canon events and I'm sorry if there are errors, I haven't betaed it, so I'd be really thankful if you relay any you find :)
> 
> Thanks, and peace out!!


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